Still, the Nokia N9 and its MeeGo Harmattan software platform remain unmatched in various aspects of user interface and user experience. Even though MeeGo Harmattan has essentially remained stagnant and frozen in time for 2 whole years, it still represents a benchmark in some ways for what a smartphone user interface should be.

Virtually every N9 owner I've ever talked to loves the N9 unconditionally. It could have been the Eve of Nokia's resurrection. Instead, it became the symbol of its demise.

The N9 has some flaws. The most serious one is the browser, which was poor when the phone was new. Certainly worse than IE is now, but who knows what Nokia could have made of it if they just tried. Also, the hardware is a bit slow.

The UI is decent enough, but it's too easy to swipe an app to the background if the app itself has a swiping interface (like maps). It should have used upward swipes to send them to the background, and downwards to close.

It's still the coolest phone I've ever seen, though, and very functional right out of the box. Skype? Google voice and video chat? You don't need an app for that (Skype is video-less, though).